A couple of days ago I received this letter, and with the permission of the person who sent it to me am posting it so that when someone else who has this reaction to statins searches they will find that while it may be unusual for statins to precipitate a seizure, it does happen.
Dan -
I was Googling statins and seizures and came across your blog. Thank you for writing this!
I have been on and off statins for the past year. Like you, I hate medication. I won’t even take a tylenol (besides the fact that they make me dizzy!)
I don’t like putting anything in my body that’s not necessary.
I am a 56 year old healthy woman. My cholesterol was 220 and my doctor gave me a statin to bring it down. She first prescribed 40 mg a day! Thank god I was home because after 2 days my living room was spinning and I thought I would fall down. I had to lay down for 5 minutes. I then cut the pills in half to 20 mg. Still, minor headaches, muscle cramps and just an icky all over feeling that you can’t describe. I then decided to quit all together.
After about 4 months I started up again, this time with 10mg every OTHER day. Everything seemed to be okay with treatment. My numbers dropped to 180. Good ! On August 23 I had a dizzy spell. Thank god my boyfriend was there to catch me as I fainted and blacked out for 30 seconds. Five minutes later I had another fainting spell after feeling dizzy. This time he wasn’t there and I hit my head on the bathroom tile floor resulting in a concussion. The MRI and all the tests at the ER were normal. I am still experiencing lingering symptoms from that hard fall.
My doctor ordered an EEG. The tests showed that a minor seizure had possibly occurred. I have an appointment with a neurologist on Nov 3. I know the side effects of the statins after much research and the effect they have on the brain. I have thrown away the pills and am convinced they caused the fainting. I am curious to see what the neurologist thinks about it. Of course, they don’t have a lot of documented proof about things like this that patients can offer insight into, but he will get MY insight!
I have now decided to go on the Apple Cider Vinegar treatment. It treats a multitude of ailments, including cholesterol. At least it won’t affect my brain!
Thanks for listening and for your post!
Patty
Like Patty, I began to doubt that there was a connection between the statins and the seizure, and tried to take them again, this time choosing Lipitor. I logged my experience so that I could try to be more specific when I talk to my doctor. However, Patty is correct that this is very hard to put into words. It really is a feeling of dread connected with what I can only describe as a loss of the feeling of well being connected with a hemispheric balance. Here is what I wrote during the second try at taking statins:
reaction to Lipitor
The first time I tried a statin drug it was on the fourth day, in the evening, when I had a seizure. This was the culmination of a progressively difficult four days, during which I had a “bad feeling.” My doctor insisted there was no connection between the statins and the seizure. It was following the seizure that I began to notice a difficulty in remembering facts and names which I normally would have at hand. When I asked my doctor if she was reporting the seizure as connected to the statins she said there was no evidence of it. I agreed to get extensive testing on my brain, which showed nothing unusual for my age. There was still no reporting the connection between the statins and the seizure because there is no reporting of it in the literature. And it obviously isn’t being reported because it isn’t in the literature.
Of course there is a Catch 22 there.
I tried taking statins again and this time was paying closer attention when I began having a bad reaction. Before I was trying to recall what it felt like. This time I tried to more specifically describe it as on the first evening I took Lipitor, there was nothing particularly bad except that I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that my conscious mind was unable to relax sufficiently to allow sleep to come. The second night I took another Lipitor, and it was less than half an hour later when the symptoms began, this time very strong. I was at the dinner table and felt that I was extremely tired, and needed to lie down I went downstairs to sit in a recliner, but the feeling of distress was so strong that I needed to go to bed, which I did, working with the symptoms by doing a progressive relaxation. While I was able to relax somewhat, I realized I was so devoid of any physical energy I could only get out of the bed with great effort. Again I could not sleep. The next evening I did not take another statin, and was able to fall asleep. I dreamed of a situation in which I was presenting an article idea to an editor and suddenly my mind was blank. I had no ability to move information from where it was stored to conscious presentation.
